dickens

Charles DickensPerformer - Culture & LiteratureMarina Spiazzi, Marina Tavella,Margaret Layton 2012

Performer - Culture & LiteratureMarina Spiazzi, Marina Tavella,Margaret Layton 2012

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Charles Dickens

Born in Portsmouth in 1812. Unhappy childhood: he had to work in a factory at the age of 12 (his father went to prison for debts). He became a newspaper reporter with the pen name Boz. In 1836 Sketches by Boz, articles about London people and scenes, were published in instalments.

Evert A. Duyckinick, Charles Dickens1.Dickenss lifePerformer - Culture&Literature

Performer - Culture&Literature*

Charles Dickens

Success with autobiographical novels: Oliver Twist (1838), David Copperfield (1849-50), Little Dorrit (1857). Bleak House (1853), Hard Times (1854), Great Expectations (1860-61) set against the background of social issues. Busy editor of magazines. Died in 1870.1. Dickenss life

Performer - Culture&Literature


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Charles Dickens

Dickens was the great novelist of cities, especially London depicted at three different social levels: the parochial world of the workhouses its inhabitants belong to the lower middle class;the criminal world murderers, pickpockets living in squalid slums; the Victorian middle class respectable people believing in human dignity.Detailed description of Seven Dials, a notorious slum district its sense of disorientation and confinement is clearly expressed in Dickenss novels.2.The setting of Dickenss novels



Charles Dickens

Dickens shifted the social frontiers of the novel

the 18th-century realistic upper middle-class world was replaced by the one of the lower orders.

He depicted Victorian society in all its variety, its richness and its squalor.

3. Dickenss charactersPerformer - Culture&Literature


Charles Dickens

He created:caricatures he exaggerated and ridiculed peculiar social characteristics of the middle, lower and lowest classes;weak female characters.

He was on the side of the poor, the outcast, the working-class.3. Dickenss characters



Charles Dickens

Family, childhood and poverty the subjects to which he returned time and again.

Dickenss children are either innocent or corrupted by adults.

Most of these children begin in negative circumstances and rise to happy endings which resolve the contradictions in their life created by the adult world.

4. Dickenss themes



Charles Dickens

Dickens tried to get the common intelligence of the country to alleviate social sufferings.

He was a campaigning novelist and his books highlight all the great Victorian controversies:

1. The faults of the legal system Oliver Twist, Bleak House2. The horrors of factory employment David Copperfield, Hard Times3. Scandals in private schools David Copperfield5. Dickenss aim



Charles Dickens

Dickens tried to get the common intelligence of the country to alleviate social sufferings.

He was a campaigning novelist and his books highlight all the great Victorian controversies: The miseries of prostitution

The appalling living conditions in slums Bleak House

Corruption in government Bleak House

5. Dickenss aim



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Charles Dickens

Dickenss style very rich and original

The main stylistic features of his novels are:

long list of objects and people;

adjectives used in pairs or in group of three and four;

several details, not strictly necessary.

6. Dickenss style



Charles Dickens



Repetitions of the same word/s and/or sentence structure.

The same concept/s is/are expressed more than once, but with different words.

Use of antithetical images in order to underline the characters features6. Dickenss style



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Charles Dickens



Exaggeration of the characters faults.

Suspense at the end of the episodes or introduction of a sensational event to keep the readers interest.6. Dickenss style



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Charles Dickens

Oliver asks for more This Bildungsroman (an education novel) appeared in instalments in 1837.

It fictionalises the humiliations Dickens experienced during hischildhood.

The protagonist, Oliver Twist, is always innocent and pure and remains incorruptible throughout the novel.

At the end he is saved from a life of villainy by a well-to- do family.7. Oliver Twist (1838)



Charles Dickens

The setting is London, Dickens attacked:

the social evils of his times such as poor houses, unjust courts and the underworld;

the world of the workhouses founded upon the idea that poverty was a consequence of laziness;

the officials of the workhouses because they abused the right of the poor as individuals and caused them further misery.7. Oliver Twist (1838)



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Charles Dickens

It celebrates Christmas Eve and Christmas.The protagonists are:

Scrooge, an old, greedy man;the ghost Christmas past;the ghost Christmas present;the ghost Christmas future;Bob Cratchit, Scrooges long-suffering clerk;Tiny Tim, Bobs crippled son;Fred, Scrooges nephew.

The ghosts shows Scrooge the evils of his existence.8. A Christmas Carol (1843)



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Charles Dickens

Its main themes:Redemption and transformation Scrooge turns from a selfish man to a generous one who understands the importance in taking notice of the people living around us.The children of the poor.8. A Christmas Carol (1843)

Performer - Culture&LiteratureJim Carrey as Scroogein the film A ChristmasCarol, directed by Roberi Zemeckis in 2009.


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Charles Dickens

It is a denunciation novel a powerful accusation of some of the negative effects of industrial society .

The setting Coketown, an imaginary industrialised town.

Characters people living and working in Coketown, like the protagonist Thomas Gradgrind, an educator who believes in facts and statistics.9. Hard Times (1854)



Charles Dickens

Themes:

a critic of materialism and Utilitarianism;

a denunciation of the ugliness and squalor of the new industrial age;

the gap between the rich and the poor.

Aim to illustrate the dangers of allowing people to become like machines.

9. Hard Times (1854)



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Charles Dickens

Dickenss work transcends his time, language and culture.

Dickenss legacy:

He was the man who invented the idea of a white Christmas.

A famous writer stated:Whether the Christmas visions would or would not convert Scrooge, they convert us. (G. K. Chesterton, 2007)

10. 2012: The bicentary of Dickenss birth



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Charles Dickens

Dickenss legacy:

'Dickensian' poverty Dickens was oneof the first to describe the underclass and the poverty stricken in Victorian London. Dickensian it has become the easiest word to describe an unacceptable level of poverty.


Performer - Culture&LiteratureThe labour houses of Bethnal Green in East London


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Charles Dickens

Dickenss legacy:

3. Modern character comedy the comic potential of the wayhis characters talk.

The cinema Dickens was a key and important influence in cinema development. He invented the parallel montage where two stories run alongside each other and the close-up.




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Charles Dickens

Dickenss legacy:

5. Meaningful nameshe refined the practiceto suggest characters traits and their role.

Some characters have become so recognisable that they have entered the language as nouns for example, a Scrooge = somebody mean-spirited or lacking generosity.10. 2012: The bicentary of Dickenss birth



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Charles Dickens

Dickenss legacy:

6. Our view of the law the current view of lawyers seems to be partly inspiredby characters such as the menacing lawyer Mr Tulkinghorn in Bleak House

What remains of the issues highlighted by Dickens the cost of the legal proceedings, particularly with small civil claims, is bound to exceed the damages that are obtained. 10. 2012: The bicentary of Dickenss birthPerformer - Culture&LiteratureDickens was very critical of the way the law discriminated against the poor


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